


The Invitation

by Kiyara_Iris



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst, M/M, One-Sided Love, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-24 17:02:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15634950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyara_Iris/pseuds/Kiyara_Iris
Summary: A short angsty piece about Duo, an invitation and a day he hoped would never come.





	The Invitation

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be part of a larger, more complex story I'm not sure will ever come to fruition. I sort of like the sharp contrast of pain to other pieces I've written; no resolve, no happy ending, no real explanations, just life simply being what you don't want it to be. Enjoy ^_^

" And now we come back to tonight's main event. Something that will surely change the course of history in the Earth Sphere and colonies alike." Duo's hands shook as he reached for the remote, pushing the volume button as high as he dared, the speakers crackling ominously with the unwanted effort. Instead of the multimedia upgrade he'd wanted, his last paycheck had been sunk into repairing a leak in the cooling vents of internal pressure controls in the apartment complex he owned. Dropping the remote to the ground, he doesn't even hear the clatter as plastic molding splits apart, the contents of wire and mechanics spilling onto the floor. Instead his eyes and his ears pull all attention to the pathetically small screen in his living room.

            He didn't need the time or date, it was printed on his personal invitation; the one hanging on his fridge; the one he'd never got around to RSVPing to; the one Quatre had called him every consecutive week about (Heero’s calls he simply ignored); the one he'd tried more than once to rip to shreds and throw in the garbage disposal...but for the few lines which had stayed his hand; script at the bottom of the smart, cream textured paper, in neat kanji;

                        ' I hope to see you there my friend, I have missed you. Heero Yuy'

How had he even known Duo could read Japanese? Had they ever spoken of their knowledge of languages? He'd probably read Japanese somewhere without even realizing it, at a base or at a school and Heero had filed it away in his massive memory banks for just such an occasion; something to catch Duo out with, startle him with the power of that mind.

            Not that Heero realized it, but he had a major ego that walked around in tight spandex and taunted everyone around him. Made him appear aloof and perfect. Duo had realized early on though, it wasn't a striving for perfection, it was an arrogance of assuming nothing less. It was an arrogance collided with a high roundhouse kick to the face followed by a nasal cavity being railroaded into the adjourning brain. You didn't fuck with that kind of arrogance! You respected it, you yielded to it...and in Duo's case you fell into a deep, twisted, soul torturing love with it.

            " And Relena Peacecraft makes her entrance, wearing a Vinique Elms original, all eyes have riveted to her beauty." Duo snorted at the melodrama that stunk up news casting these days. It was like clenching perfume snorted directly into nasal passages. The camera man took a long shot of Relena making her progression slowly down the rose petal strewn aisle (could this all have been more cliché?) took a wide sweeping arch of the crowd -people craning and practically crawling over one another to get a glimpse of the ex-princess in her crowning achievement- and then the camera made the mistake of coming to rest on the man standing at the end waiting for her.

            Duo didn't blink, hadn't blinked in practically 15 minutes; and took in all those handsome features with hungry excitement. Hadn't felt much of that type of excitement in his 9-5, frozen dinner, day to the next fucking day life. Probably not since he'd had that factory work and they'd supplemented everyone's paychecks as extra incentive to not to unionize. He'd bought himself a rare treat; real potato's shipped all the way from Earth. Not the crap colony inbreeds that flaked and stuck to the roof of your mouth; but honest to god, dirt shifted, real potatoes. Yeah, he was the kind of guy that'd wait his whole life for that kind of mouth-watering, savory texture. Wait through hellish jobs and crap apartments just to feel it rolling in his mouth waiting to slide down, coating his throat in decadence and a dream.         

            The announcer cut in,

            " Heero Yuy, as everyone knows, is a celebrated war veteran. A dear friend and close companion of Relena Peacecraft for many years." Hard training kept the nervousness out of the woman's voice, but Duo knew it was there. Knew what she was trying to explain away. What the camera had caught out was Heero Yuy looking intense, focused...and not even glancing at Relena. Instead those eyes were shifting in military parameter's through the crowd, insistent and calculating. They were trying to explain the bizarre behavior away as cautiousness. What ex-war vet was ever comfortable in crowds? Especially such a vulnerable exercise where pilgrims of every colony had flocked to what registered to religious ecstasy, just to bear witness to this event.

            But he knew Heero. Knew the blue of his eyes, knew the minute movements of his fingers that showed a variety of silent signals (was also one of his only tells of nervousness: a slight, constant twitch of his middle finger toward his palm) knew the smell of his deep, pungent sweat...knew how he sounded as he cried in his sleep. Heero wasn't checking perimeters or surveillance or twitching, he wasn't even aware the camera was on him. He was searching. Searching the crowd for someone. Someone who hadn't returned his calls, someone he'd asked to be his best man. The person who never thought he could refuse Heero Yuy anything.

            Shit.

            Finally, with the click of Relena's modest half inch heal hitting the landing platform, his eyes met onto hers, and as the rest of his focus came back into the present Duo actually felt a line snap, a tension erased, a vibration coming all the way from Earth halted. Now, Heero was in soldier mode; focused, calm, perfect. But, this was a wedding not a mission and even Duo; in his short, sad history of fucked up relationships; could tell all was not right in a love that called for war tactics. Even from the Perfect Soldier.

            But he shut his mind off and watched. Listened to the priest's tasteless litany of rules and regs that came with entering into the last legal form of servitude; perked up a bit when Heero came to his vows, sounding as if he'd read them out of a romance novel and with about as much joy as any sane man would get from reading one. Duo felt a another spurt in the growing clench in his stomach with Relena's passionate vows; promising endurance and honesty, and goddamn it she sounded like she _meant_ it. His foot tapped an impatient rhythm into the carpet, a fingernail being subconsciously chewed in his mouth. Finally, it came to the end.

            " Relena Peacecraft, do you take Heero Yuy to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold till death do you part?" The cameraman deserved a damn award for that angle of Relena's tear stained, elegant features, breathing " I do". Probably had millions of woman around the Earth and Colonies weeping. Duo registered with a dull certainty that his knees had just made a hard hello with the floor.

            " Heero Yuy, do you take Relena Peacecraft as your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold till death do you part?" The angle changed, slowly, as if not sure where it wanted to end, but did indeed fill with Heero's solid-built bust. There was a pause, a fraction; something gave way in those features, as if Heero finally realized who he was, where he really was...but it was gone like the sun slunk back behind the clouds.

            " I do." Duo's breath caught in his chest, ribs damn near breaking under the weight of his heart hammering in protest of lack of oxygen, of life, of having to keep beating after all of this.

            " I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride." With reflexes born of the street, honed to a fine point during two wars, and kept alive with vigorous training, Duo's hand snatched out and flicked the power space. The noise of the cheering, the image of Relena leaning up...of Heero leaning down, faded to black.

            He'd done it. He'd actually fucking done it. Duo's hand was shaking as he pulled it back down to his lap, mind bending around the idea that Heero had actually...that he was...

            Shit.


End file.
